(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for controlling interference in a carrier aggregation system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for controlling interference that can minimize interference between terminals in a system that aggregates and uses component carriers operating with a frequency division duplex (FDD) method and a time division duplex (TDD) method.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A carrier aggregation system is a system that aggregates at least one component carrier having a smaller bandwidth than a target wideband to form a wideband, when a wireless communication system attempts to support a wideband.
In the carrier aggregation system, the term “serving cell” may be used instead of the term “component carrier”. Here, a serving cell is formed with a pair of component carriers such as a downlink component carrier and an uplink component carrier, or is formed with only a downlink component carrier. The carrier aggregation system is a system in which a plurality of serving cells, i.e., a plurality of component carriers, are set to a terminal. Therefore, the terminal may transmit and receive data through a plurality of component carriers.
In such a carrier aggregation system, when terminals that are connected to different base stations in close proximity use a component carrier of the same frequency domain, interference between the terminals that are connected to the different base stations occurs. In order to reduce such interference, an almost blank subframe (ABS) pattern is used. The ABS pattern is a subframe pattern including an ABS. However, interference may not be reduced with an ABS pattern. Further, each component carrier has an intrinsic cell identifier, and an ABS pattern exists on a cell identifier basis. In this way, because an ABS pattern should be generated on a component carrier basis, much time is consumed in generating the ABS pattern.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.